Anyone who follows current biological science news will know that the discoveries that come out of the biological fields become more amazing on a daily basis. As scientific methodologies become more refined, scientists are able to manipulate even the most detailed biological processes. Eventually, this will allow them to understand complex diseases and hopefully find cures for them.

Nanomedicine

One of the most astounding fields of biological science nowadays is that of nanomedicine. Nanomedicine involves applying nanotechnology to biological processes. Nanotechnology involves working with matter on the scale of atoms or molecules – in other words: very small. Applications of nanomedicine involve finding ways to deliver drugs that make them more available to the body. For example, by using nanoengineering, a drug can be targeted to a specific molecular target and delivered there with precision. This is far more efficient than the current method of getting a drug into the bloodstream then just hoping it reaches its target.

Nanoparticles can also be used, however, to directly target problematic areas in the body like blood clots or cancer tumors. Recently, researchers at Harvard University used drug-coated nanoparticles to dissolve blood clots. Other researchers at Case Western Reserve University used nanoparticles to deliver an anti-cancer drug to breast cancer tumor cells. With the use of nanomedicine, diseases like cancer and heart disease may one day be a thing of the past.

Animal Models

Biological scientists are also developing more accurate animal models of human disease. A good example of this is work being done with mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists can use genetic engineering to create mice that have particular variants of human genes. In the case of Alzheimer’s disease, they were able to engineer mice with a gene that gives humans a 15 times increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. The engineered mouse has the genetics of humans who have the disease, and also displays symptoms that resemble the human disease.

Animal models like this are an important step forward in understanding and treating diseases like Alzheimer’s. Perhaps most importantly, they provide scientists with a model of the disease in an organism they can test drugs on (something which they can’t do ethically in humans until they’ve shown the drugs to be safe). It also allows them to study changes in brain and body chemistry as the disease progresses, giving them more information about how a disease like Alzheimer’s develops.

Nanomedicine and animal models are just two of the myriad ways biological scientists are becoming more adept at understanding and treating human diseases. The knowledge contained in a field like biology grows exponentially with every year that passes. This allows scientists to have very ambitious plans for the near future when it comes to the management of human conditions that only 20 years ago might have seemed impossible to manage.

If you look only at the state of medicine 50 years ago, it is astounding to see how far we have come. It is staggering to think what could occur in the next 25 or 50 years. Biological science is one field that has an impact on all of our lives.